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There was a bit of drama and excitement that went down in the middle of the night. The Swedish Prosecution Authority has officially reopened the case against Assange on the remaining rape allegation. Here is the official statement:

Deputy Director of Public Prosecution Eva-Marie Persson has today decided to reopen the Assange case that was previously discontinued.

The prosecutor will shortly request that Julian Assange be detained in his absence suspected on probable cause for an allegation of rape from August 2010. To be able to execute a detention order, the prosecutor will issue a European Arrest Warrant. An application for a detention order will be submitted to Uppsala District Court, as the suspected crime took place in Enköping municipality.

– On account of Julian Assange leaving the Ecuadorian embassy, the circumstances in this case have changed. I take the view that there exists the possibility to take the case forward. Julian Assange has been convicted of a crime in the UK and will serve 25 weeks of his sentence before he can be released, according to information from UK authorities. I am well aware of the fact that an extradition process is ongoing in the UK and that he could be extradited to the US. In the event of a conflict between a European Arrest Warrant and a request for extradition from the US, UK authorities will decide on the order of priority. The outcome of this process is impossible to predict. However, in my view the Swedish case can proceed concurrently with the proceedings in the UK, says Deputy Director of Public Prosecution Eva-Marie Persson.

Reopening the investigation means that a number of investigative measures will take place.

– In my opinion a new interview with the suspect is required. It may be necessary, with the support of a European Investigation Order, to request an interview with JA be held in the UK. Such an interview, however, requires JA’s consent, says Eva-Marie Persson.

Few thoughts. It appears clear that Sweden will be filing a new European Arrest Warrant EAW), and I would expect they lodge that forthwith. Which will result in competing extradition requests from the United States and Sweden. There are many factors that will play into the decision by the UK of where to ship Assange when his sentence on the bail jumping offense is done. The final decision is in the hands of the UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

Several factors, but most critically the pending expiration of the Swedish statute of limitations in August 2020 militate in favor of giving the nod to Sweden over the US. Here is the excellent David Allen Green on that. Also, there is no question of “political prosecution” with the Swedish charge, where in many regards there are such concerns with the current, and potentially future, US charges.

If Assange was smart (no given), he might consider fighting extradition to the US and waiving it as to Sweden. I have always maintained that if Assange wants to fight US extradition, he is much better situated to do so from Sweden than he is from the UK. Several international law experts agree, for instance Mark Klamberg, as cited by Kevin Jon Heller in Opinio Juris gives some great background on that issue, even though Mr. Klamberg’s original post was written back in 2012.

Another interesting thing is the SwedishProsecution Authority has indicated they will request a formal interview with Assange via video link while he is in UK prison custody. That would appear to require consent by Assange, and it is far from certain he would give that.

Also, there is still the matter of what charges will be the final ones submitted by the US to the UK. The US has until June 12 to submit its final charges to the UK per a court order. As you may recall, the Rule of Specialty makes this a critical factor, as I detailed in this post a month ago. Adding to this issue is the US looks to get a long reprieve on that if Assange is sent by the Brits to Sweden first. At that point, the US would have to file a new extradition request with the Swedes, so, obviously, they would look to have a lot more time in that circumstance.

Lastly, the other factor is that Assange litigated extradition to Sweden previously, and lost in every court of jurisdiction. He could fight extradition to the US for a very long time, but looks dead in the water already as to Swedish extradition.

So, in closing, there was a lot of excitement early this morning, and there will surely be more to come regarding Assange

Famed World War II code breaker, and computer pioneer, Alan Turing has been pardoned by the British government. From the New York Times story:

Nearly 60 years after his death, Alan Turing, the British mathematician regarded as one of the central figures in the development of the computer, received a formal pardon from Queen Elizabeth II on Monday for his conviction in 1952 on charges of homosexuality, at the time a criminal offense in Britain.
….
The British prime minister, David Cameron, said in a statement: “His action saved countless lives. He also left a remarkable national legacy through his substantial scientific achievements, often being referred to as the ‘father of modern computing.’ ”

Mr. Turing committed suicide in 1954, two years after his conviction on charges of gross indecency.
….
When Mr. Turing was convicted in 1952, he was sentenced — as an alternative to prison — to chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He also lost his security clearance because of the conviction. He committed suicide by eating an apple believed to have been laced with cyanide.

That is about as nice, concise and antiseptic a take as can be had on the matter. The truth, and scathing comment on society therein, is quite a bit darker and uglier.

That Turing’s work helped win the war, and that it has had such a large social and economic impact beyond that, makes his treatment by the state especially embarrassing. But his life and his homosexuality are no more meaningful just because he was a genius we (perhaps despite ourselves) managed to benefit from. To use his work in computer science as a basis for this pardon seems to trivialise both the huge contribution of that work and, perhaps more importantly, the history of gay rights.

Right. But it is even darker than the common story of privilege and celebrity gaining advantage. That the pardon came nearly sixty years after Turing’s death in forced shame (whether by suicide or not), makes the pardon act almost sad and meaningless. It does nothing for Turing, at this point it is mostly a cute and happy Christmas feel good move for the British throne and government. The hollowness of the move at this point saps much of the joy.

In practice, if the police obtained sufficient evidence they would normally prosecute, and the courts would then usually convict. In all there were an estimated 75,000 convictions under section 11 (and its successor offence in the Sexual Offences Act 1956). One of these convictions was of Oscar Wilde, who was sentenced in 1895 to two years’ hard labour (the “severest sentence that the law allows” remarked the judge). But, perhaps counter-intuitively, most of these prosecutions did not happen in the days of Victorian prudery, but in the two to three decades after 1931.

One of these prosecutions was to be of Turing.

And the pardon was not just meaningless to Turing because he was dead the date, lo some 59 years later, when it was issued, it was meaningless too because if Turing were still alive, the equivalent would had already been available by act of law. As David Allen Green further relates:

A recent statute – the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 – provides a scheme where those who had been convicted of the section 11 offence (and similar offences) can apply for their entire criminal records to be removed if the facts of the case would no longer count as a crime. It would be as if the offence had not been committed at all. These are not pardons – they go much further: the 2012 scheme removes the taint of criminality altogether, and with no fussing about not affecting the conviction or the sentence.

But the 2012 scheme is only for those still alive.

Lastly, Green goes back to the “why only Turing” bit that ought to gnaw at all who celebrate the pardon today:

Turing’s conviction was just one of about 75,000 under a vindictive law. But here is no logical reason why his should be regarded as a unique case. The actual wrong done to Turing was also one done to many thousands of men, and so any righting of that wrong must apply to those men too.

If Alan Turing is to be pardoned then so should all men convicted under section 11 if the facts of their cases would not be a crime today. But a better posthumous gesture would be to simply extend the 2012 scheme to all those who are now dead. Removing the criminal records completely of all those prosecuted who would not be prosecuted today on the same facts would be a better legislative gesture than a single statutory pardon, if there is to be a legislative gesture at all.

Precisely. If you want to honor Turing, make right not just by him, but all those similarly situated. And there are a lot of such men in history. This supposedly benevolent act of the Queen and British government rings hollow and self serving, there is much more than one heroic man to atone for.

Lastly, I urge a full read of David Allen Green’s piece in the New Statesman. It is long and detailed, but truly tells the full tale that ought be told regarding the atrocious history of Alan Turing’s offense, conviction then, and disturbingly hollow pardon now. And, the beauty of it is, Green penned his piece over six months ago, long before today’s pardon came down.